Kayla Heglas

About Kayla Heglas

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Kayla Heglas has a BHA (Bachelor’s of Humanities and Arts) in Fine Art and Professional Writing. Through the program she has explored a combination of journalistic and self-explorative writing in conjunction with, a variety of mediums ranging from photography to installation.

           

Her work lends a critical eye to the relationships formed between families and the spaces they inhabit. She is interested in the idea of nostalgia and sentimental value, and how these ideas reflect identity. Her primary influences are found in Braddock, Pa where her family has lived for over four generations through the town’s periods of growth and deterioration.

         

She explores these things through old photos and prized possessions. These photos and objects are to interact and create a narrative; a nostalgia.  Author Susan Stewart, an American poet, writes, “Nostalgia cannot be sustained without loss. For the nostalgic to reach his or her goal of resemblance and identity, lived experience would have to take place” (Stewart 145). By pairing these old photos and objects with present ones, she hopes to show this ‘loss’ and bring about the goal of resemblance and identity.